Wildfires can become hot enough to produce rare mushroom-cloud like formation known as pyrocumulus clouds. When they form they will tower above the ash and smoke.

The scientists found that mushroom shapes only occur in “head-on” collisions – when the incoming gas cloud’s trajectory is no more than 5° away from being perpendicular to the galactic plane.

This week, he shared it with meteorologist Jacob Dunne of the NBC affiliate in Mobile, Ala., who posted it to Twitter, calling it “quite possibly the best example of a mushroom cloud I have ever ...